In the year of the fall of the Qin Dynasty, the fire burned the city of Xianyang for three months. The arsonist is Xiang Yu, the overlord of Western Chu.
History,"Xiang Yu led his troops to the west to slaughter Xianyang, killed the prince of Qin, burned the Qin palace, and the fire was not extinguished for three months".
Some strategists persuaded Xiang Yu to occupy Guanzhong and become a hegemon. But the former national hatred blinded Xiang Yu's heart, he destroyed the prosperous capital, looted treasures, and returned to the east, and found a reason to say: "Wealth and wealth do not return to their hometown, such as clothes and brocade at night." ”
When the smoke cleared, the Great Qin Empire had become a dream, and as one of the most eye-catching projects of the empire, Afang Palace slowly disappeared into the doubts of history with this fire.
Xiang Yu. Source: Film and television stills.
A thousand years passed from that fire, a poet of the Tang DynastyDu MuUse one"A Fang Gong Fu"., bringing people into the imagination of grandeur and magnificence.
In this famous article, Du Mu wrote at the beginning that after Qin Shi Huang ruled the world, he ordered people to cut down the trees in Shu to be bare, and all the timber was transported to Xianyang to build the Afang Palace.
In Du Mu's pen, Afang Palace covers an area of more than 300 miles, the gorgeous and exquisite palace covers the sky and the sun, five steps on the first floor, ten steps and a pavilion, distributed between rivers and lakes, and each room can be transformed into four different temperatures.
Qin Shi Huang, who was extremely poor and extravagant, transported the treasures and beauties of the six countries to the palace, "taking all the baht and using it like mud and sand". The beauties in the palace are like clouds, the mirrors of their dressing are like stars, and the long hair of their shawls is like black floating clouds. Every day, the water of the Wei River is full of fat powder discarded by beauties; The clouds and smoke rising from the mountainside are the ...... of the incense mist used to burn precious spices such as pepper orchids in the palace
After sprinkling hundreds of words, Du Mu wrote down the tragic ending of Afang Palace:"The Chu people are burned, poor scorched earth! ”
Du Mu said that after the fall of the Qin Dynasty, such a magnificent building could not escape Xiang Yu's fire in the end.
Finally, Du Mu pointed out the main purpose of the article with one sentence:"The Qin people have no time to mourn themselves, and future generations mourn them; Later generations mourn and do not learn from it, and it also makes future generations mourn for future generations. ”
Du Mu, who was 23 years old at the time, borrowed the historical lessons of the Qin Dynasty to point the sharp edge of criticism at the rulers of the Tang Dynasty who were building a lot of construction at that time.
This article is deafening and recited through the ages, and it is a famous article of the Tang Dynasty. Since then, more and more people believe that there was once a magnificent Afang Palace, which was later burned down by Xiang Yu and became a warning to future generations of the Qin Dynasty.
Xiang Yu, Dahuo and Afang Palace, these three key words are linked together, and it is difficult to separate them anymore.
However, it should be noted that "A Fang Gongfu" is Du Mu's literary creation based on history, and some of its content is only based on the author's own reverie and has no historical basis.
Xiang Yu's fire may not have burned to Afang Palace.
Portrait of Xiang Yu. Source: Internet.
More than 100 years after the death of Qin, the Han Dynasty historian Sima Qian visited historical monuments in order to compile the "Historical Records". It is conceivable that Sima Qian, who has been an official in Chang'an all the year round, may have seen the ruins of Afang Palace in the south of Weishui.
In the "Historical Records", Sima Qian left early written materials about Afang Palace for later generations.
According to historical records, Afang Palace was built in the 35th year of Qin Shi Huang (212 BC). In his later years, he thought that the Xianyang Palace built by his ancestors was too small compared to the huge population of the capital, so he followed the story of Yu Fenghao, the capital of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and mobilized manpower from the more than 700,000 migrant workers and convicts who built the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang to build a new "imperial palace" (that is, the emperor's palace) in Shanglin Yuan on the south bank of Weishui.
This is the origin of Afang Palace. At this time, it was only 5 years before the fall of the Qin Dynasty.
The Historical Records describes the architectural pattern of the front hall, pavilion and gate of the Afang Palace
First make the front hall of the house, five hundred steps from east to west, fifty zhang from north to south, ten thousand people can sit on it, and five zhang flags can be built below. Zhou Chi is the pavilion road, from His Royal Highness to Nanshan. The top of the South Mountain is considered to be que.The front hall is the place where the emperor deals with major court affairs, located in the center of the entire Afang Palace, if you use the Forbidden City in the Ming and Qing dynasties as a metaphor, it is probably equivalent to the Taihe Palace.
However, Sima Qian only wrote about the scale of the front hall of Afang Palace in the "Historical Records", and he did not depict other gorgeous palaces and the extravagant life in the palace like Du Mu later.
This leaves a question, you know, Sima Qian is not only a historian, but also a writer, when he wrote the "Historical Records", only a hundred years before the construction of the Afang Palace, he can grasp more information than Du Mu, and can have more descriptions of the internal scenery of the Afang Palace, this way of writing also helps to condemn the previous dynasty's dereliction of government, but he did not do so.
Portrait of Sima Qian. Source: Internet.
In addition, when consulting the "Historical Records", it will be found that Sima Qian did not write about Xiang Yu's destruction of Afang Palace.
Regarding Xiang Yu's act of burning Xianyang, the record of "Qin Shi Huang Benji" is, ".Then he slaughtered Xianyang, burned his palace, captured his children, collected his treasures and goods, and the princes shared them."；The statement of "Xiang Yu Benji" is,"Xiang Yu led his troops to the west to slaughter Xianyang, killed the prince of Qin, burned the Qin palace, and the fire was not extinguished for three months".
As a symbol of the overthrow of the Qin Dynasty's imperial power, Xiang Yu executed the last Qin prince who had surrendered before, and burned down the "palace" that represented the political center of the Qin Empire.
These two records do not mention anything about Afang Palace, and the "palace room" here mainly refers toXianyang Palace
Xianyang Palace was built in the north of Weishui and the south of Jingshui, which was built after the Qin State moved its capital to Xianyang during the Warring States Period, and then was the place where the emperor of the Qin Dynasty ruled, and many important edicts issued by the Qin Dynasty after the unification came from the Xianyang Palace. The court of the Qin Dynasty has not had time to move into the Afang Palace, so the Xianyang Palace has always been the main palace of the Qin Dynasty.
Archaeological findings show that in the site of Xianyang Palace in the west of present-day Xi'an, in addition to the red clay, charcoal ash and slag with obvious traces of fire, there are also a large number of building remains. This can basically be determined that this palace, which witnessed major historical events such as Jing Ke's assassination of Qin and Qin's annihilation of the Six Kingdoms, was destroyed in battle, and this fire was most likely set by Xiang Yu's army.
Xianyang Palace was really burned, but the fate of its "little brother" Afang Palace was even more confusing.
Tang Wang Wei (biography): "A Fang Palace Picture Scroll" (detail). Source: Internet.
The ruins of Afang Palace, located in Weiyang District, Xi'an City, were included in the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units as early as 1961.
After two thousand years of vicissitudes, there is only a seemingly inconspicuous loess plateau left, and the Afang Palace ordered by Qin Shi Huang to be built is buried deep under this loess earth.
Since then, there has been a lot of talk about archaeological excavations at the Afang Palace site, and the archaeological community wants to unravel the mystery of history that has been hidden for many years - why did this fantastic palace suddenly disappear? Did Xiang Yu burn down Afang Palace?
In 2002, byLi YufangThe team led by the professor began a comprehensive archaeological exploration of the Afang Palace. Prior to this, Li Yufang had been doing archaeological work for decades, mostly excavating palace ruins. Experience tells her that the palaces of the Qin people were built on an artificially rammed pedestal, and archaeologists can understand the layout and structure of the palace through drilling and excavation.
At the site of Afang Palace, Li Yufang and his team found a rammed earth foundation that is 1,270 meters long from east to west and 426 meters wide from north to south. According to measurements, this earthen platform is 12 meters higher than the ground in the Qin Dynasty, so it is estimated that about 6.5 million cubic meters of soil will be used to build this foundation, which is undoubtedly a huge project more than 2,000 years ago.
This earthen platform is located in the core area of Afang Palace. According to Sima Qian's "First Zuo Qiandian Afang" and the description of the scale of the front hall of Afang Palace in the history books, scholars deduce that this is the site of the front hall of Afang Palace.
After grasping the key clues, Li Yufang's team carried out in-depth excavation of this site, looking for traces of palace buildings.
In the following two years of archaeological work, Li Yufang discovered two paradoxical phenomena:First, there has been no evidence of the existence of palace buildings for a long time; The second is that there is no physical evidence on the ruins of Afang Palace that has been burned. This is contrary to the traditional view that Xiang Yu burned the Afang Palace.
One day, archaeologists finally unearthed a large number of Qin Dynasty tiles in the north of the site. On one of the tiles, Li Yufang recognized the words "Master Craftsman B", indicating that the tile was fired by a Qin Dynasty craftsman named B. The archaeological team was overjoyed, thinking that the remains of the palace building of Afang Palace were about to be unearthed.
However, during the long excavations that followed, the archaeological team struggled to find enough remains of buildings other than tiles to prove that palace buildings once existed here. On the side walls of the edge of the rammed earth platform, there is also no "receiving" structure (a reinforcement method to enhance the stability of the building) commonly used in Qin Dynasty palaces.
At this time, Li Yufang realized that there might be a special structure on the platform that served as the foundation.
Through careful excavations, archaeologists have found that there is a slope structure on the rammed foundation that gradually rises from south to north, which could have been used to transport loess when building the palace, but if the palace had been built, the ramp would have had no reason to continue to exist, and should have been bulldozed long ago.
This ramp, which should not have appeared, and the "disappearance" of the remains of the palace, made archaeologists come up with a bold speculation, breaking the stereotyped impression of 2,000 years. Archaeological research shows that the Afang Palace may not even have been completed in the front hall.
Therefore, Afang Palace was neither burned down by Xiang Yu nor evaporated from the world, but was never built at all. This legendary building is actually an "unfinished building".
Yuan] Xia Yong: "A Fang Palace Page". Source: Internet.
If you open the historical books, you will find that the words in the book have proved from the side that the Afang Palace was not built, which corroborates with today's archaeological data.
For example, the "Records of the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty" reads:"Afang Palace has not been completed; become, want to change the name, the name. ”
Hanshu Five Elements Chronicles says:"Resurrected Ah Fang, but died before it was completed. ”
According to these two documents, until the death of Qin, Afang Palace was not built, and even this name is just a code name, similar to "a certain project in the south of Weihe".
There are various theories about the origin of the name of Afang Palace. Some scholars believe that "Ah Fang" can be read as "Ah Pang", which is the Chang'an dialect of the Qin and Han dynasties, which means "over there", and the saying is "the palace over there"; There is also a saying that "Afang" refers to the name of the place, from the sentence "next to the palace Aji, so the world is called Afang Palace" in the "Sanfu Huangtu", which means that this palace was built on the foundation site of Acheng, so it is called "Afang Palace".
If the Afang Palace had been completed, the Qin Dynasty would have given it a new official name in accordance with Qin Shi Huang's wishes, rather than continuing to adopt the cheesy temporary title.
Afang Palace Archaeological Site Park. Source: Photo.com.
We can also look at it in the context of the historical background at that time.
In the thirty-fifth year of Qin Shi Huang (212 BC), Ying Zheng thought that Xianyang City was too cramped and issued an edict to build Afang Palace. Just two years later, Qin Shi Huang died of illness on his last tour of the East. As soon as the emperor died, it was imperative to hold a funeral for him. As a result, the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, which was carried out at the same time as the Afang Palace, became the number one project, and the construction of the Afang Palace was suspended, and all the labor originally mobilized went to repair the soil for the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor.
In the first year of Qin II (209 BC), Hu Hai saw that his father was buried, and the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang was successfully repaired, so he issued an order"Remake Afang Palace".
However, in the same year, Chen Sheng and Wu Guang rose up in Daze Township, setting off a huge wave of uprising. In the autumn of that year, Chen Sheng's subordinate Zhou Zhang attacked Guanzhong and arrived at the opera pavilion (now Lintongdong, Shaanxi), which was more than 100 miles away from Xianyang.
At this time, Xianyang's most urgent task became to counterinsurgency. Seeing that Qin II Hu Hai panicked, ShaofuZhang HanHe said to him, there are many thieves, and now it is too late to mobilize soldiers and horses from other counties, and there are many prisoners in Lishan Xiuling, so I beg Your Majesty to release them and let them pick up the ** to fight.
When Qin II heard this, he was probably so excited that he slapped his thigh, and hurriedly handed over all the people who served in Lishan to lead Zhang Han, and went to conquer Zhou Zhang. This army became an important military force in the late Qin Dynasty, and it was transferred to various places with Zhang Han, and was later wiped out by Xiang Yu.
As mentioned earlier, the labor force for the construction of the Afang Palace was divided from the 700,000 people who repaired the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor. Therefore, it can be speculated that due to the lack of manpower and the flames of war, the construction of Afang Palace had to come to a standstill again, and its construction time was only about 3 years. In ancient times, when there was a lack of modern mechanical assistance and completely relied on manpower, the time left for the Afang Palace project was too short.
Later, the Qin Dynasty fell in the midst of peasant uprisings and the anger of the nobles of the Six Kingdoms, and this huge project became history. More than 2,000 years of wind and rain have swept across the earth, eroded countless relics on the loess, and also buried the truth of Afang Palace. It is believed that there was once such an imperial palace, and the extravagance, corruption, and unsympathy it symbolized were the main culprits that led to the fall of the Qin Dynasty.
However, from ancient times to the present, many people have questioned the matter of "Xiang Yu burned Afang Palace".
There was a writer in the Song Dynasty calledCheng DachangIn his book "Yonglu", he pointed out that there are errors in Du Mu's "A Fang Gongfu":
Today, if you use Qin for reference, there are many suspicious people who are endowed with it. ......The world of the first emperor of Afang has not tasted the service, the number of apprentices, to tens of thousands, the second to take it, for Lishan, a few weeks Zhangjun to the play, then take this service apprentice to fill the soldiers, is the song stage dance pavilion, the Yuan is not completed, the palace people have not tasted the residence, and there is fat and water to abandon, and the rise is greasy.Cheng Dachang's statement is not only to find a basis from historical documents, but also coincides with the current archaeological results. It is a pity that few people have noticed such a rational point of view, and the saying of "Xiang Yu burning Afang Palace" is like an ideological steel seal, which has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
This also reflects the important value of "Afang Palace" as a literary image.
The literati of the past dynasties described the scenery of Afang Palace so richly, wrote about its destruction, and let Xiang Yu carry this pot, which was nothing more than for the sake of irony.
Idealistic intellectuals from different eras will be saddened by the rulers' abuse of people's and material resources, and they cannot persuade them face-to-face, so they have to find lessons from history.
This imaginary palace has become a target for criticism, telling the story of the rapid demise of a dynasty, whether it was built or burned, and it is a wake-up call for future generations. This has remained the same for the ages.
Qing Dynasty Yuan Jiang: "A Fang Palace Silk Book". Source: Internet.
References:
Sima Qian: Historical Records, Zhonghua Book Company, 1982
Ban Gu: Hanshu, Zhonghua Book Company, 2007
Tang Du Mu: Fan Chuan Anthology, Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 2007
Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Xi'an Institute of Cultural Relics Protection and Archaeology, Xi'an Qin Afang Palace Site Depository: Archaeological Discovery and Research of Afang Palace, Cultural Relics Press, 2014
Duan Qingbo: Qinling: The Dusty Empire, China Democracy and Legal Publishing House, 2018